


waiting for it (that green light)

by schmetterlinq



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-16
Updated: 2017-10-16
Packaged: 2019-01-18 08:46:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12384819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schmetterlinq/pseuds/schmetterlinq
Summary: Junmyeon said it was nothing serious. Sehun fell in love anyway.





	waiting for it (that green light)

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer: none of this ever happened, it’s all fictional, I own nobody.  
> warnings: smut, language  
> prompt: #370 'Sehun, a freshman, can't help but falling in love with kind and caring senior Junmyeon, who is dangerously close to graduating.'
> 
> author's notes: Dear prompter, thank you for this gorgeous prompt! I have to be honest and say I'm not entirely happy with this fic, but I do really hope you enjoy it anyway!
> 
> Thanks to the mods for running this awesome fic fest and being so understanding about extensions!
> 
> Title from 'Green Light' - Lorde

The guy Sehun is with isn’t Junmyeon.  
  
He’s attractive, Sehun’s usual type. Older, well built, with a strong jawline, and a heavy gaze that had scorched across Sehun’s body as they danced. He’d paid for all Sehun’s drinks at the club, for the cab that brought them back to his place.  
  
He’s too tall. The weight of his body on top of Sehun’s is too heavy. His hands are too big, too hard, gripping Sehun’s hips, clumsy, fingers digging into the bones, making Sehun wince and shift.  
  
Junmyeon is always gentle, always soft. He was careful, always so very careful with Sehun.  
  
This guy — Sehun can’t even remember his name; doesn’t remember if he even asked, God that’s bad — is grunting, his breath unpleasantly hot against Sehun’s neck. He has stubble, which Sehun remembers thinking was quite sexy back in the club, but now feels like sandpaper scrapping against Sehun’s skin. He’s going to have red burns all over his face and neck, he thinks. His roommate, Jongin, will laugh at him.  
  
The guy starts tugging at Sehun’s hips, urging him to turn over onto his front, and Sehun goes willingly, relieved to get away from the guy’s breath and his scratchy face. He gets up on his hands and knees, helps the guy get him out of his jeans.  
  
He wants to get fucked, he does. It’s been weeks, weeks since the last time. He’d tried to hook up with a girl in a random bedroom at some frat party, but he hadn’t been able to get it up. The last time he was with a man— that was Junmyeon.  
  
The guy starts prepping Sehun, and it feels good, although his fingers are bigger than Junmyeon’s, his touches rougher. Junmyeon’s touches are always precise, deliberate. Thoughtful, like Junmyeon himself.  
  
Sehun pushes back on the guy’s hand, urging him on. He has just been spoiled, he tells himself, by how Junmyeon’s fingers were the perfect size, slim but long enough to reach inside, touch Sehun just as he needed to be touched. Spoiled, too, by the way Junmyeon would take his time, opening Sehun up slowly, pressing kisses down Sehun’s neck and back, until Sehun’s thighs were shaking, until he was begging, until Junmyeon would finally, finally, finally —  
  
The guy pushes in, a bit too early. It burns, and Sehun lets out a quiet _oof._  
  
“Okay, sweetheart?” the guy rasps, and Sehun says quickly, “yeah, yeah, yeah.”  
  
The guy starts fucking him, and it’s good, it always feels good to be fucked, to be filled up, but it isn’t Junmyeon — isn’t Junmyeon’s body, isn’t his scent, his hands, his lips, his cock — and Sehun’s still only half hard.  
  
The guy’s thrusts are already starting to lose their rhythm, which might be flattering under different circumstances, and Sehun has to reach between his legs and start jerking himself off as hard as he can or he isn’t going to come, and he doesn’t want this guy awkwardly trying to return the favour. Suddenly he wants this to be over as soon as possible.  
  
Even the physical grip of his hand around his cock is barely pleasurable, but he can just about feel an orgasm building, and he tries to grasp onto it, tries to push back against the guy behind him — it’s not right; he doesn’t fill Sehun like Junmyeon does — and pumps his cock furiously.  
  
The guy reaches down to help but Sehun bats his hand away. The guy doesn’t seem bothered; he squeezes Sehun’s thigh — his nails dig in — thrusts a few more times, and then comes with a long groan.  
  
His cum is unpleasantly hot inside, and Sehun realises he’s so out of it, he didn’t even think about using protection. Normally he’s religious about it.  
  
He pulls on his cock frantically, almost painfully. He really needs lube, his hand chafing on the skin, but he’s almost there, he just needs to come so he can get out of here.  
  
He closes his eyes, thinks about Junmyeon, what Junmyeon would do if he was here right now. How he’d slip out, roll Sehun over, cradle him against the mattress. He’d fuck Sehun with his fingers, suck on Sehun’s cock, and Sehun, Sehun would —  
  
Orgasm hits him, like a punch in the gut, and Sehun buckles forward on the bed, his knees giving out.  
  
The next thing he’s aware of is the guy behind him slurping at his neck. Fuck, he’s going to have a hickey.  
  
He pushes the guy off and gets up, wincing a little as he does.  
  
The guy flops back down on the bed. He’s really not as attractive as Sehun remembers thinking he was before. His face is too square, his nose too large.  
  
“Damn,” says the guy, “Damn, that was so good.”  
  
Sehun gives him a faint, tight smile, struggling into his jeans and pulling his t-shirt back on. He’s glad someone enjoyed themselves, he supposes.  
  
“No need to rush off, sweetheart,” says the guy. “Stay a little.”  
  
Sehun sticks his feet straight into his shoes, forgoing his socks, which are lost somewhere on the guy’s dark bedroom floor. “No, I — I have to go.”  
  
The guy shrugs, stretching. “You want my number, then? I’d love to do this again some time.” He eyes Sehun’s ass.  
  
Sehun nods, simply so he doesn’t have to go to the trouble of refusing, and lets the guy put it into his phone. Then he makes a break for the front door.  
  
Out on the street, while he’s waiting for his Uber — it would have been safer to wait inside, but Sehun hadn’t wanted to be that room another second — Sehun finds the guy’s number and deletes it.  
  
  
So much, Sehun thinks later in the shower back home, for proving to himself that he’d moved on.  
  
He really had thought he was doing better. The first few weeks after Junmyeon broke it off, even getting out of bed had been a struggle some days. His friends had all tip-toed around him with the most awful concerned expressions on their faces. Minseok had even offered to talk to Junmyeon for him, which Sehun had hastily declined — the thought of Minseok trying to convince Junmyeon to date Sehun out of pity was just awful.  
  
Then there’d been that hideous, embarrassing encounter with that girl at Chanyeol’s party. She’d been terribly nice about it, which almost made it worse. Sehun had been too mortified to do anything but shove his soft dick back in his pants and make a run for it, which he feels bad about now; he should really have offered to get her off some other way. After that, he hadn’t really gone out again at all, not until tonight.  
  
When that guy had approached him on the dance floor, Sehun had actually been attracted to him, and that had made him feel hopeful. Maybe he’d rushed into the sex too fast. Maybe he should have just danced, left with the guy’s number, asked for a date in a week or two, try to let some anticipation build.  
  
Or maybe Junmyeon’s just ruined him for everyone else, both men and women. Right now, that feels more likely.  
  
Sehun turns the shower off, finally feeling clean again, and steps out.  
  
He’s so stupid. He and Junmyeon weren’t even together. Junmyeon had made it very, very clear from the start that sex was all he wanted, because he was graduating at the end of the semester and didn’t want to start anything serious with anybody. He’d had a bad break up, he said, about a year ago, when an old boyfriend had transferred to another school and their relationship had slowly, painfully, fallen apart, unable to withstand the distance. The last thing he wanted, he’d told Sehun, was to go through anything like that again.  
  
So they hooked up — for a month. A month! Only a month, and then Junmyeon ended it, and now Sehun will probably never be able to have sex with anyone else ever again.  
  
Sehun is tired. His body aches. It must be nearly three in the morning, even four.  
  
He leaves the bathroom and pads down the hall, passed the closed door of Jongin’s bedroom, where his roommate has probably been sleeping peacefully for hours, the bastard.  
  
He crawls into his own bed. It’s a relief. He doesn’t know if he’ll sleep tonight, but just lying down, pulling the covers up over his head like a child, letting the mattress bear the weight of his body, feels good.  
  
It’s Junmyeon’s graduation ceremony tomorrow. He’d invited Sehun, ages ago, before they’d even fucked around, back when they were only friends. Sehun intends to sleep through it.  
  
  
  
He’s woken the next morning, far too early, by Jongin knocking on his door.  
  
“Sehun,” his roommate’s voice says through the door. “Have you told Junmyeon you aren’t going today?”  
  
Sehun groans and puts the pillow over his head. He knows Jongin hears him, because there’s a sigh from the other side of the door.  
  
“It’s up to you whether you go or not,” Jongin says, “But you should talk to him.”  
  
Sehun stays under the pillow. It’s all right for Jongin. He’s sickeningly happy with Soojung and has been for months.  
  
He listens until he hears Jongin walk away, and then the front door of the flat close and lock. Then he takes the pillow off his head and sits up.  
  
Maybe he should text Junmyeon at least. Junmyeon might look for him after the ceremony, might wonder where Sehun is.  
  
Junmyeon is a worrier. When Sehun leaves his flat late at night, he always insists that Sehun texts him to let him know he made it back to the dorms safely.  
  
Or he did, back when Sehun used to go to Junmyeon’s flat.    
  
Sehun doesn’t pick his phone up. He covers himself with the blankets again and determines to go back to sleep.  
  
About an hour later and unable to drop off again, Sehun rolls himself out of bed and heads into the shower. He stubbornly ignores his phone when it buzzes for what he expects will be the first time. If Junmyeon really wants to get hold of him, he can try again harder than one text. But the phone remains silent after that.  
  
*  
  
  
Sehun and Junmyeon had met for the first time in the first week of Sehun’s second semester of college.  
  
It was at a party the first weekend back after Christmas, and Minseok was half-dragging a boy that Sehun didn’t know. The boy was wearing a pin-striped navy button up shirt — to a college party — and he had a jaw line that Sehun wanted to map with his mouth.  
  
“This is my flatmate, Junmyeon,” Minseok had said. “He was taking six classes last year and never went anywhere. I told him that now it’s his last semester he has to actually try and have some fun.”  
  
Junmyeon laughed. His eyes crinkled up at the corners when he did. His hand was smaller than Sehun’s, but sturdy, and warm.  
  
  
A very serious debate at the party (between Baekhyun and Jongdae, over whether a werewolf or a vampire would win in a fight: Jongdae thought a werewolf, Baekhyun a vampire, Jongin said he didn’t care; Junmyeon said Buffy would defeat both of them, which Sehun was inclined to agree with) had led to everyone discussing favourite TV shows, and then movies, and it had emerged that Sehun had never seen all of Star Wars.  
  
“I’ve seen the first one!” Sehun had protested. “Isn’t that the one that matters?”  
  
Junmyeon had been shocked. “You didn’t even get to the big reveal in episode V!”  
  
“I know what it is,” Sehun had said. “Everyone knows.”  
  
“Yes, but you haven’t seen it!”  
  
Junmyeon insisted that Sehun had to come to his flat as soon as possible, the very next weekend, for a movie marathon. Some of the others came too, but they started to drift away after episode V, when Junmyeon said they had to go back and watch the prequels (“That’s the proper way to do it, then you get to see the backstory as a flashback”).  
  
Sehun thought the movies were okay, but he’d have stayed for anything just to listen to Junmyeon talk about the world-building, the different alien species and the characters’ individual styles of lightsaber fighting; to watch the way his eyes crinkled up and his front teeth peeked out over his lower lip when he smiled really wide.  
  
It was almost ten at night by the time they finally got through all the prequels and finished episode VI. Sehun said he had to go; it was a Sunday, and he had a 10am class the next day.  
  
“We didn’t get to watch _The Force Awakens_ ,” Junmyeon had said sadly, as Sehun gathered his things.  
  
“I guess I’ll just have to come back over for that one then,” Sehun had said.  
  
Junmyeon beamed at him. Sehun might have already been a little bit in love.  
  
  
Junmyeon was messy.  
  
Sehun had gone back over the very next weekend — just to finish Star Wars; not because he was desperate to see Junmyeon again, not because he had been living only for Junmyeon’s kakaotalk messages (bright, cheerful, peppered with stickers, wishing Sehun good days in class) all week. Minseok let him in. Junmyeon was still on his way back from a drama club meeting.  
  
Sehun went and sat in Junmyeon’s room. There were clothes all over the floor. A half finished glass of juice was perched precariously on the very corner of the desk. Some of the juice had spilled and was staining one of Junmyeon’s text books — a dry stain, so it must have been there for some time and Junmyeon hadn’t cleaned it up.  
  
Sehun took a photograph and sent it to Junmyeon. You’re gross.  
  
Junmyeon’s reply comes within seconds. I was just about to message you. We must have a connection~ and then Don’t attack me in my own house! This is unacceptable!  
  
Sehun washed up the glass. He couldn’t do anything about Junmyeon’s stained notes, but he piled them up carefully.  
  
  
After that, Junmyeon had wormed his way into Sehun’s life quickly. When Sehun hadn’t been able to make it to watch _Rogue One_ the next weekend, needing to study for a test, Junmyeon came to the library with him. Baekhyun and Jongdae tagged along too, but they left after a few hours, and Junmyeon stayed, carefully going over Sehun’s English notes with him.  
  
“I haven’t studied English in years,” Junmyeon said, and his accent was rusty, but his voice was warm and soft as he carefully read out words for different types of weather for Sehun to translate: _Cloudy. Windy. Rainy. Sunny._  
  
  
Sehun had been greedy.  
  
It should have been enough — the study dates together, the movie marathons in Junmyeon’s room at the weekends. Hearing Junmyeon chatter on about his day, his classes, about the kids from the local school that came to do workshops with the college drama club once a month, about the latest comic book he wanted, the latest figurine he was planning to add to his extensive collection. Sitting in Junmyeon and Minseok’s flat, watching with something between fondness and horror as Junmyeon tried to cook him dinner, as Minseok slipped past them with a twinkle in his eye and a “Rather you than me, Sehun” as smoke started to trickle from Junmyeon’s pan.  
  
Being Junmyeon’s friend — it should have been enough.  
  
“Are you and Junmyeon dating?” their friends had started asking, whenever they saw Sehun smiling at his phone, looking at a message from Junmyeon or a picture he’d sent of himself. Sehun had always said no, of course not.  
  
They’d been at a club. Minseok’s boyfriend Lu Han was in town, and he wanted to go clubbing. Only Junmyeon and Sehun didn’t already have plans for the night so they’d agreed to tag along.  
  
Sehun had been buzzing with anticipation as he’d got ready for the night, sliding into his tightest jeans. “Does eyeliner look like I’m trying too hard?” he’d asked Jongin.  
  
“Don’t ask me, I know nothing about fashion,” said Jongin. He was on the couch wearing a onesie that looked like a bear and eating gummy worms. He had a point, Sehun thought.  
  
Sehun went with the eyeliner anyway, and even Jongin had said, “You look good” and given him a thumbs up as he let himself out of their flat.  
  
Junmyeon had been wearing a Star Wars t-shirt and jeans that looked like something Sehun’s dad would wear to do the gardening. He was gorgeous.  
  
Minseok and Lu Han had, predictably, been completely focused on each other, and headed to the dance floor almost as soon as they got into the club, so Sehun and Junmyeon had gone to the bar to get drinks. Sehun had thought he’d need to be drunk, just a little.  
  
Junmyeon was very tactile that night. He rested his hand on Sehun’s back; he stroked along Sehun’s arm as he offered to buy him another drink. Sehun bloomed under his touches, felt himself growing big and brave. He reached out and took Junmyeon’s wrist, just above his hand. “Dance with me?”  
  
Junmyeon had nodded.  
  
There was a low, heavy bass thumping through the building, regular as a heartbeat, and Sehun had lost himself in it, let himself be swept along with the music like a  body in a current of water. He let himself be swept into Junmyeon, and Junmyeon didn’t resist; his hands fitted onto Sehun’s hips, drawing him in.  
  
They rocked together, bodies fitting round each other, melting together. Junmyeon’s gaze on Sehun was as heavy, as lingering as a caress, and Sehun felt drunk from it, even more than from the alcohol.  
  
When he leaned in, though, moved to press his mouth against Junmyeon’s, Junmyeon turned his head away.  
  


*  
  
  
Junmyeon calls that afternoon. He doesn’t ask where Sehun was, why he  missed the graduation ceremony.  
  
“I can’t talk right now, Junmyeon,” Sehun says. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.  
  
Junmyeon is silent for a moment. Then he says, “Are you okay?”  
  
“No,” Sehun says. “No, I’m not.”  
  
“Sehun,” Junmyeon says. “Sehun, I —”  
  
Sehun hangs up on him.  
  
He’s not being fair, he knows. Junmyeon hasn’t done anything wrong. He was honest about what he wanted from the very beginning. No, this is all on Sehun, all on Sehun and his foolish, greedy heart. 

 

*

  
  
That night at the club, they hadn’t talked about what had happened, about Junmyeon turning away when Sehun tried to kiss him. Sehun had gone home in an agony of confusion and barely slept that night, remembering Junmyeon’s hands burning on his skin, his gaze following the movements of Sehun’s body — but also how quickly he’d turned his head away.  
  
They didn’t speak for the next few days, and then Junmyeon had sent a text message. None of his usual silly puns or emoticons — it just said, _I need to talk to you._  
  
They’d met at the campus Starbucks.  
  
The weather was still cool, but it was finally warm enough not to need a winter coat. Junmyeon had been wearing a very soft-looking pink sweater. Sehun imagined rubbing his cheek against it, against Junmyeon’s chest, like a cat.  
  
Junmyeon wrapped his hands around his coffee, and spoke very quietly as he apologised to Sehun for what had happened that weekend. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I was just — taken aback. I wasn’t expecting —”  
  
“It’s okay,” Sehun said. “It’s okay, Junmyeon.”  
  
It wasn’t okay, but Sehun couldn’t stand seeing Junmyeon’s usually bright, open face looked so shuttered.  
  
Junmyeon had told Sehun about his bad break-up with the boy who’d transferred to a different school. He talked about his upcoming graduation at the end of the semester. “I just can’t do anything serious right now, Sehun,” he said. “I’m sorry, it’s not… it’s not the right time.”  
  
“It’s fine,” Sehun had said.  
  
“I didn’t want to, you know — without telling you.”  
  
“Junmyeon, it was just a kiss.” A lie. “It didn’t have to be anything serious.”  
  
Junmyeon nodded, licked his lips for traces of coffee. “It doesn’t have to be.”  
  
“It doesn’t.”  
  
Nothing else happened then. They talked about their classes, Sehun moaning about one of his choreographers, and Junmyeon complaining about a student in one of his lectures who never stopped asking questions, and then went their separate ways for classes. Sehun wasn’t quite sure what he’d agreed to, whether they’d even agreed to anything at all.  
  
But that weekend they had all been out, and he and Junmyeon ended up sharing an Uber home with Baekhyun. The driver was a pretty girl, a few years older than them, and Baekhyun was chattering away to her, making her laugh around the bubble gum she was chewing, leaving Junmyeon and Sehun sitting in quiet, comfortable silence.  
  
It was cool in the cab, and dark, but Junmyeon’s body was warm against Sehun’s, and the orange of the street lights flickering across Junmyeon’s face, lighting him up.  
  
It wasn’t anything serious.  
  
But oh, it had felt serious, when they got back to Junmyeon’s flat, when they were in Junmyeon’s room, sitting on his bed, when Sehun leaned in and Junmyeon didn’t turn away. It felt serious, when Sehun pushed Junmyeon back onto the bed, undid his pants and took Junmyeon into his mouth. It felt serious, the weight of Junmyeon on his tongue, the taste of him, the sound of Junmyeon’s panting, the feel of his fingers carding restlessly though Sehun’s hair.  
  
When Sehun woke up the next morning, Junmyeon wasn’t there.  
  
There was a note on Junmyeon’s desk. Junmyeon would normally have drawn a smiling face, probably with rabbit ears — it was a favourite joke of his that he looked like a rabbit — but this note only said: _At the gym._  
  
Sehun went home, feeling strange, off balance. Jongin asked him where he’d been. When Sehun said he’d been at Junmyeon’s, Jongin nodded and said, “I figured.”  
  
  
  
Sehun didn’t see Junmyeon again for several days. The next time was at Kyungsoo’s the next Friday, where everyone had gathered for drinks and Kyungsoo’s cooking.  
  
Kyungsoo liked to cook — took a lot of pride in it, would chase anyone who tried to interfere in the kitchen out with a dish cloth — and everyone else liked food, so it was a mutually beneficial arrangement to have him make them all dinner about once a month. Sehun always looked forward to it, to getting a proper meal for once and to spending time with his friends. That day, however, he’d been dreading it, dreading seeing Junmyeon, wondering what Junmyeon would do, whether he’d even turn up.  
  
He almost hoped Junmyeon wouldn’t go. He considered not going himself — but he’d have had to come up with an excuse to make to Jongin. _My grandmother’s grandmother is sick. My uncle’s friend has a dental appointment. My mother’s cousin’s wife’s brother’s hamster is visiting from America._ He couldn't think of anything.  
  
Junmyeon was already there when they arrived, drinking wine and laughing with Minseok. He had his glasses on and he was wearing a shirt with little flamingos printed all over it. Sehun fell just a little more in love.  
  
Junmyeon was completely normal that night — normal, except that he completely avoided Sehun. He was good at it, so good at it none of the others noticed. Junmyeon didn’t ignore Sehun when he was speaking or turn away from him — but he kept slipping away, every time it seemed like they were going to be left alone together, wriggling past Sehun’s fumbling attempts to talk to him.  
  
When the evening was finally over, when Kyungsoo was clearing all the plates away, Baekhyun and Jongdae lolling on the couch stuffed and sleepy, Jongin drifting off to text Soonjung, Sehun finally had enough. “You want to come over and watch a movie?” he asked Junmyeon.  
  
Junmyeon had just looked at him. The expression on his face was terrible.  
  
“I have plans,” Junmyeon said.  
  
Sehun had felt something inside him crack, just a little.  
  
  
Nothing else happened for another couple of weeks. Sehun didn’t speak to Junmyeon at all. He’d ruined everything, he thought.  
  
It was a rainy night. A Tuesday — Sehun remembers because Jongin was out at his late dance class, which was on a Tuesday, and Sehun was alone. He was trying to focus on memorising English words for parts of the body — _Head. Eyes. Ears. Nose. Mouth._ — but it was hard, so hard, without Junmyeon there to quiz him, so he was mostly just watching the rain hitting the window, streaming down.  
  
When Sehun’s phone buzzed against his desk, he didn’t even look to see who it was before answering. He expected it to be Jongin, who often forgot his keys.  
  
It was Junmyeon.  
  
“I’m outside!” Junmyeon panted. He sounded as though he had been running. “Can I come up?”  
  
Sehun went down to get him, already knowing it was a bad idea.  
  
Junmyeon was soaking wet. He was wearing his work out clothes, the white t-shirt clinging to his body, almost see through against his abs. He’d been on his way back from the gym, he said, when the rain started coming down even harder.  
  
“Can I wait with you until it stops?” Junmyeon had asked, as though the past weeks just hadn’t happened.  
  
Sehun took him upstairs. Junmyeon dried himself off and changed into one of Sehun’s hoodies and a pair of Sehun’s pyjama pants, both of which were much too big for him. The hoodie covered his hands, the pants trailing around his feet as he walked. It made Sehun’s chest hurt. They ate ramen and Junmyeon prattled a little about how he’d seen La La Land the previous weekend, finally, he’d wanted to see it for ages, and it was perfect, just perfect, he couldn’t resist a good musical, but that ending —  
  
“I didn’t take you for someone who’d be into musicals,” Sehun said.  
  
“Oh yes,” Junmyeon said happily. “In high school we did a production of _Grease_ and I was Danny.”  
  
Sehun burst out laughing.  
  
“Oh Sehun, baaaab-yyyy,” Junmyeon sang.  
  
Sehun kissed him, leaning down over Junmyeon in the kitchen chair. He didn’t decide to, he just realised his mouth was on Junmyeon’s. The older boy tasted of salt and the soup from the noodles, and he kissed Sehun back.  
  
They ended up in Sehun’s room, on the bed, Sehun’s jeans and the top-big hoodie piling together on the floor. Junmyeon kissed. He rolled Sehun over, spread him open, cursed as he did. He opened Sehun up on his fingers and tongue, pausing occasionally to ask, “is this — is this okay?”  
  
“Yes, yes.” Sehun was whining, pushing back. “Just like that, Junmyeon, Junmyeon...”  
  
It wasn’t anything serious.  
  
But after that it kept happening.  
  
Junmyeon was the most attentive lover — the best, definitely the best Sehun had ever had. He’d pull Sehun into his lap, lower him back onto the bed, reduce him to nothing but quivering, aching need with his fingers and mouth. He always took it slow, slow, slow, drawing it out, stretching Sehun to his very breaking point.  
  
He said it wasn’t anything serious, but he still held Sehun like a prize, like a precious treasure.  
  
He’d clean Sehun up after they had sex, so gently it would make tears prickle in Sehun’s eyes. He’d lay his head on Sehun’s chest after they’d had sex, press his face into the crook of Sehun’s neck.  
  
In between the sex, Junmyeon varied. Somtimes he was just like Sehun’s old best friend, texting Sehun silly pictures, rambling about movies, performing the dance for Red Velvet’s _Russian Roulette_ in the middle of the quad when he heard the song being played from a dorm window. Other times he could go hours, even days, without speaking with Sehun at all. But he always came back to Sehun’s bed.  
  
It didn’t last very long — it was a month, a little month! But Sehun felt like he’d been Junmyeon’s forever.  
  
  
  
One weekend, everyone was once again at Kyungsoo’s, and maybe it was the brownies Kyungsoo had made, maybe it was the alcohol, maybe it was just Junmyeon and the need for anything, anything at all, but Sehun had leaned into the other boy’s side, and Junmyeon hadn’t pushed him away. Instead, he rested his head against Sehun’s shoulder. It fitted perfectly into the crook of Sehun’s neck.  
  
Sehun’s heart ached.  
  
Junmyeon took him home at the end of the night. His mouth tasted of chocolate. He covered Sehun’s face, his neck, his chest with kisses. He slid inside of Sehun and fucked him slow, slow, slow, until Sehun was keening, almost sobbing, _yes, yes, yes, God, Junmyeon, Junmyeon, Junmyeon._    
  
Junmyeon cupped his face, cradled it, kissed him like a drowning man. He said Sehun’s name like a prayer, took him like communion, slow, slow, slow, until Sehun was stretched to his very breaking point, until he fell apart in Junmyeon’s arms, but it was okay, it was all okay, because Junmyeon was right there, falling apart with him.  
  
They slept in curled around each other like cats, and Sehun had walked home the next day as though he’d just been baptised, thinking, maybe, maybe, maybe.  
  
It felt serious. More serious than ever before.  
  
The next day, Junmyeon had called Sehun and told him he didn’t think this was working any more.  
  
Sehun had buckled, broken, like Junmyeon had dropped a ten tonne weight onto his back.  
  


*

  
  
He was stupid. He is stupid. He’d always known he wanted more. He should never have agreed to anything else. But he’d wanted whatever Junmyeon was willing to give — and in return he’d given his heart.  
  
  
Sehun stays in bed for most of the rest of the day.  
  
  
  
Jongin is back that night, and Sehun has finally got up and showered, padding around in his pyjama pants.  
  
Jongin looks at him sadly. Sehun thinks about snapping at him to stop, but fighting with Jongin wouldn’t solve anything and it wouldn’t make Sehun feel any better, either.  
  
“Soojung and I are going out,” Jongin says.  
  
Of course they are, Sehun thinks.  
  
“There’s leftover take out in the fridge,” Jongin adds, and Sehun takes a moment to wonder at how pathetic he’s really become, when Jongin, who couldn’t even do his own laundry when he first arrived at college and still calls his mom for help understanding his bank statements, is trying to look after him.  
  
Jongin gets ready to go out with Soojung. Sehun sits at the kitchen table, feeling hungry but somehow not really wanting Jongin to know he’s going to take his advice of eating the leftovers.  
  
“I’ll see you later,” Jongin says, grabbing his keys. He goes to open the door, and at that very moment the doorbell rings.  
  
Sehun assumes it’s Soojung, and doesn’t pay any attention, until he hears Jongin answer on the intercom, and hears Junmyeon’s voice: “Jongin? Is Sehun there?”  
  
Sehun’s head jerks up. “I’m out,” he says instantly.  
  
“He’s here, come on up!” Jongin says, and presses the door release.  
  
“Jongin!” Sehun yelps, leaping out of his chair. “What are you doing?”  
  
Jongin shrugs, pulling on his jacket. “You need to talk to him, Sehun.”  
  
“I don’t —”  
  
There’s a soft tap at the door. Jongin opens it, and Junmyeon is there.  
  
He looks — perfect; Junmyeon always looks perfect. He’s wearing beige slacks — with an actual crease ironed into the legs — and a dark blue, long-sleeved Ralph Lauren polo shirt. His hair looks freshly washed and terribly soft. Sehun aches to fall into him.  
  
“Sehun,” Junmyeon says, so tender, so soft, and his voice goes right through Sehun.  
  
“Right,” Jongin says from by the door, “I’m heading out.”  
  
“Jongin!” Sehun protests desperately, but Jongin, the bastard, just gives him a thumbs up and a wave, and hurries out.  
  
Sehun and Junmyeon are left alone.  
  
A small, ridiculous part of Sehun’s brain thinks, _well I guess I’m not going to get to eat those leftovers now then._  
  
“I missed you today,” Junmyeon says.  
  
“Your whole family was there,” Sehun says. He remembers Junmyeon telling him, ages ago, that they were all making the journey up, that his parents had already booked their plane tickets. Then he thinks of something, and says, “Where are they now?”  
  
“At their hotel,” Junmyeon says. “Having dinner.” He sighs. “My mom was a bit upset I said I couldn’t join them.”  
  
“Why couldn’t you?”  
  
Junmyeon doesn’t answer.  
  
“Why are you here, Junmyeon?”  
  
Junmyeon rubs his hand over his eyes. “Because — because I don’t know how, but I think I’ve really hurt you, and I never, ever wanted to do that, so I came to say I’m sorry.”  
  
Sehun stares at him.  
  
Junmyeon sighs. “Sehun, I — I never should have agreed, to us just being friends with benefits. I knew it was a bad idea at the time, but —”  
  
“You knew it was a bad idea?” Sehun repeats incredulously. “Then why did you suggest it in the first place?”  
  
Junmyeon stares at him. “I — I didn’t. You suggested it.”  
  
“What? What are you talking about? You suggested it! You took me to Starbucks and you told me it didn’t have to be anything serious between us!”  
  
“Sehun,” Junmyeon says. He’s looking at Sehun as though he thinks Sehun might be crazy. “It was you that said it didn’t have to be anything serious. We were in the Starbucks, and we were talking about that night we went out with Minseok and Lu Han, and you tried to — to kiss me, and then you said you didn’t want it to be anything serious.”  
  
Sehun feels like Junmyeon has just pulled the floor out from underneath him. He had said that, but that wasn’t what he’d meant… “I just meant the kiss didn’t have to be anything serious. If you didn’t want it to be. And then you said that it didn’t have to be serious. Between us. You suggested it,” he adds, insists, because he knows it was Junmyeon’s idea; he’d never have suggested it himself, as greedy as he was for more of Junmyeon, even he would never have been quite that stupid. Junmyeon was the one who’d wanted something casual. Sehun had just been swept along.  
  
Junmyeon is still staring at him. “I thought… I thought you meant… Fuck.” Junmyeon pulls out one of the kitchen chairs and drops into it.  
  
Yeah, Sehun thinks, yeah, fuck.  
  
Junmyeon looks up at him. “Sehun. I’m sorry. If I’d realised — I’d never have —”  
  
Sehun swallows. He wants to say it’s okay, because he knows Junmyeon would never have hurt him on purpose. But the back of his mouth tastes so bitter, he doesn’t trust himself to speak.  
  
Junmyeon goes on: “Sehun… I’m a fool. I’d never have suggested anything happen between us. Honestly I was a fool to even go along with it when you — when I thought you suggested it. When I knew I —” He swallows. “When I knew I wanted more than that.”  
  
“What — what are you talking about?” Sehun breathes.  
  
“I was so — so angry when we met,” Junmyeon says. “That it had to be now, when I was about to leave. I really was afraid to get involved with you in case it didn’t work out, because of the distance. But I just liked you so much — I couldn’t help myself. I’m such an idiot. I knew — I know you’re not interested in me, but I —”  
  
“What are you talking about?” Sehun bursts out. “What do you mean, I’m not interested? I always liked you. Always. Always, Junmyeon! Why do you think I tried to kiss you that time at the club?”  
  
Junmyeon’s mouth is open. “I — Sehun, I — I thought you just wanted something casual, and you just told me now you didn’t even really want that, so —”  
  
“I didn’t want that because I wanted more with you!” Sehun cries. “I agreed to something casual because I wanted anything I could get! And I was an idiot because you ended it and I — I—” Sehun’s voice catches and breaks, painfully, and he can’t say anything else.  
  
Junmyeon is up and across the room in a second. “Sehun — Sehun, love, I — I thought you didn’t want anything more from me, I — I ended it because I felt like I was falling in love with you and I couldn’t handle thinking you didn’t —”  
  
“Junmyeon —” The other boy’s name breaks out of Sehun like a sob, and Junmyeon’s arms are around him, his lips against Sehun’s forehead.  
  
“I’ve got you,” Junmyeon breathes. “I’ve got you, love, Sehun.”  
  
Sehun presses his forehead against Junmyeon’s. Then he pulls away. “Junmyeon, this doesn’t — this doesn’t change anything. You’re still leaving —”  
  
“I know,” Junmyeon says. He sounds so, so sad. “I know, but I still —”  
  
“Still what?” Sehun’s voice sounds strangled.  
  
Junmyeon’s hands frame Sehun’s face. “I still want to try,” he says softly. “If you — if you’ll forgive me for being an idiot, and not saying all this before, and if — if you’ll have me —”  
  
“I’ll have you,” Sehun says instantly. His eyes are blurry with tears, but he can still just about make out Junmyeon’s eyes, so warm, so full of love. “I’ll have you.”  
  
  
  
“I missed you,” Junmyeon says, later.  
  
Sehun’s head is resting on Junmyeon’s chest, over his heart. He can hear Junmyeon’s slow, steady heartbeat. Part of him still feels like this is a dream, that maybe he’ll wake up alone in his bed, or back in that anonymous flat with the guy from the club.  
  
He squeezes Junmyeon’s side, just to reassure himself that the other boy is real, that he’s there.  
  
He nods against Junmyeon’s chest. “I missed you too.”  
  
Junmyeon kisses the top of his head. Sehun breathes in Junmyeon’s scent and closes his eyes. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen when Junmyeon has to leave, doesn’t know how they’ll make it, but right now this, just this, right here, in his arms, is all he wants; is enough.  
  


*  
  
  
_Six months later_  
  
“Let me get this straight,” Junmyeon says. He sounds baffled, as well he might, Sehun thinks. “Jongin stuck a fork in the toaster.”  
  
Sehun is shoving wet clothes into the drier at the laundromat, his phone squashed between his shoulder and ear. “Yes.”  
  
“While it was switched on.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“And that short-circuited everything in the kitchen and then the washing machine blew up.”  
  
Sehun tucks the last of his clothes into the drier, slams the door and sits back on his heels. “That’s pretty much it, yeah.”  
  
“How is that boy still alive?” Junmyeon asks.  
  
“I wonder the same thing every day,” Sehun said, making Junmyeon laugh.  
  
It’s strange, being back at university without Junmyeon, not being able to head over to his room at any time, to study together in the library, to walk to class together. It’s especially strange after that summer, which they’d spent travelling back and forth between each other’s homes, Sehun staying in Junmyeon’s parents’ huge house in the city for weeks at a time, before heading back out into the wider roads and hills of suburbia for his own parents’ place, Junmyeon in tow.  
  
So far they had agreed not to mention the nature of their relationship to their parents, wanting to make sure it was going to last first, but Sehun suspected certainly his mother already knew. She’d ask him how Junmyeon was now when they spoke, and had said a few times, seemingly from nowhere, “he’s a nice boy, a very nice boy.”  Meanwhile, Junmyeon reported that his mother was nagging him to bring Sehun back over, saying she missed having Sehun around, while Junmyeon’s father would just smile, eyes twinkling.  
  
It was strange - but they were making it work. Junmyeon sent Sehun messages every day, called him most evening. Just today, Junmyeon had messaged Sehun a photo of himself wearing a hat with rabbit ears on it. They tried to see each other on the weekends when they could, Junmyeon coming up to stay in Sehun and Jongin’s flat, squashing into Sehun’s room with him.  
  
They said they’d wait to tell their parents until it was serious, but Junmyeon had a toothbrush at Sehun’s, half a drawer full of stuff. There was a little model of R2-D2 on Sehun’s bookshelf and neither of them could quite remember how it got there.  
  
“It’s not so bad,” Sehun tells Junmyeon, switching on the dryer and flopping into one of the chairs to wait. “Time at the laundromat is time I have an excuse not to study.”  
  
Junmyeon chuckles. “I still have that list of English vocab you emailed me to quiz you on the other night. Maybe I should test you.”  
  
“Um, no thanks, dad.”  
  
“I am your father,” Junmyeon says in a low voice, and Sehun groans.  
  
“I hate you.”  
  
“You love me.”  
  
Sehun watches his clothes whirling round and round in the dryer. “Yeah,” he says, “yeah.”  
  
“Sehun?” Junmyeon says softly.  
  
“Mm?”  
  
“Me too.”  
  
Later, Sehun will walk home with Junmyeon still on the phone, his voice keeping Sehun company as he drags his clean laundry through the increasing dark of the autumn evening. Jongin will roll his eyes at Sehun - “I don’t even want to imagine what your phone bill is like!” Sehun will lay on his bed, letting Junmyeon help him study, pretending the older boy is beside him, listening to Junmyeon read out English words for different emotions: _Sad. Tired. Excited. Happy._  
  
  
  
  
  
_Fin_


End file.
